Idea: How the news hosts can overcome the awkward lag from Skype and similar video chat apps

[Towlie]

During video chats on news channels with people at home there are constant awkward moments with both sides talking at once, both sides apologizing, and neither knowing who should continue and who should stop. I just watched an exchange with Chris Jansing where she said "I'm sorry, go ahead" and then she continued talking. (DUH!)

I think they should establish a protocol to overcome that. In the old days of push-to-talk radio we used the word "over", but with video, maybe a hand signal would work better. For example, positioning a hand over one's mouth could be a signal that a person has finished and the other person is expected to speak.

[hlthe2b]

1. Well, at the expense of giving a pat to Joe Scab... just the mere inclusion of the person's name

before and after the question--especially when multiple people are linked, seemed to work well. The person hearing their name at the end of the question knew it was time to talk and others to wait. And by indicating which 2 or three people he was planning to call on in what order, that helped a lot.

[lagomorph777]

3. Yup - he does it a few seconds before they are supposed to speak.

...which gives them a moment to prepare.

[GeorgeGist]

9. Course good ol Joe ...

talks whenever he wants to.

[SWBTATTReg]

2. Just do better buffering, and have a multi second delay built into all transmissions, and then ...

you won't even notice a delay on either end. Set up a timing interval prior to a call, and then buffer the outgoing and incoming conversations the same interval of seconds, and then the call will go like a normal call, but w/ of course the built in delay. It would at least not be as distracting...

[lagomorph777]

4. I'm afraid not - latency is exacerbated by more buffering.

I'm in the telecom business and latency is a key metric for voice and videoconferencing.

[SWBTATTReg]

5. Me too, for 27+ plus years, in IT and the beginning of packet switching, bringing it into the phone

companies. Thousands of nodes implemented along w/ substantial billing and network software. I wasn't talking about the more substantial video conf. (more bandwidth required), I was talking about a simple one on one call.

[lagomorph777]

6. I must admit one thing puzzles me about this problem on TV.

I never experience that severe latency on international videoconferences, even some satellite connections. Satellite latency (GEO) adds ~250ms each way. Nothing like the several seconds we routinely see.

So I'm thinking this has more to do with injecting delay to prevent broadcasting profanity or something. But, to your point, why the heck are they injecting that cussword delay into the middle of the conversation? Just add that as it goes out on the broadcast; let the call proceed without the added delay.

[SWBTATTReg]

8. Makes sense to me. I agree w/ you, let the call go on as is. Unfortunately we have the ...

ugly word called censorship, they actually delay the outgoing transmission so they can remove such or bleep out such 'cuss words'. Ridiculous. Let the American public hear the actual 100% transmission as is, and let us deal w/ it.

Every data network has a built in delay, by the time network supervisors (the hosts, giant computers basically) got the call set ups, determined the best routing path (which may be segmented into several paths to its final destination and reassembled into the complete message). So in short, there is an inherent delay built into the data network (of course a very minimum delay). This seems contrary to a normal data network that deals w/ host cps and users (the delays) but it is a fact of reality.

One of the drivers in such efforts was that when we were dealing w/ a credit card company, when setting up the PVC (permanent virtual circuits) for them, fine tune the call timing and actual characters/segments sent, as their billing was based upon the fewest number of characters and time spent on the call itself.

So everything was geared towards a minimum of time and a minimum of characters (otherwise the credit card companies would reject our proposals (in the POS (point of sale) transactions, would incur a minimum of cost)). It is amazing that costs drove how these data networks were set up, but we had to, otherwise we wouldn't get any customers.

Everything was geared towards the highest speed and a minimum of characters/segments sent, because basically of the credit card companies. At least in my situation when I worked for SWBT (now ATT).

Take care and be safe!

[Wednesdays]

7. I'm going to be so glad when this is over.

You're going to be so glad when this is what?

[Towlie]

10. That was great!

Over.